ITAOFIR: IT Asset Ontology for Information Risk in Knowledge Economy and Beyond

As more and more organisations continue to rely on information and innovate through advancement in technology, the role and nature of IT assets as assets would keep evolving. It does not appear that this evolving nature of IT assets is understood or thoughtfully considered. More so, there is no universal taxonomy for such an important asset. This paper advances knowledge in information risk in the knowledge economy and beyond in two ways. Firstly, the OWL based IT assets ontology is the first ontology to present IT assets in a flexible, structured, dynamic, and modular view. Secondly, our ontology balances the “asset” and “possibility of threat” elements of risk in a coherent manner. It is expected that the IT assets ontology would contribute immensely toward the goal of a complete and integrated security ontology as being advocated by researchers in the field as-well-as points us towards the path of a definitive definition.